Zachary Levi is Still Trying To Get the Chuck Movie Made

Zachary Levi is still relentless in his pursuit to get a Chuckfilm adaptation made. The actor, who starred in the titular role in the action-comedy/spy-drama television series created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak, is seemingly still interested in bringing the Chuck character to the big screen, even ten years after his original show premiered on the small screen. Chuck aired on NBC and followed the life of a man named Chuck Bartowski – whom, in an unusual twist of fate was turned into human CIA software after he receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend. This led to him going from being a regular computer geek to someone handling covert operations for government intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA.

The show ran for five seasons but its longevity on-air was mainly due to impressive fan support. Following waning ratings over the course of its sophomore year, Chuck was on the brink of cancellation – which prompted its loyal viewers to take matters into their own hands and campaign for the show’s comeback for a third season. Fortunately, they were able to secure a sponsorship deal with the restaurant chain Subway. Chuck, however, ultimately bowed out off the air in 2012, via a two-hour finale at the end of its fifth season.

Even though the show got a proper sendoff, many fans still miss Chuck and would like to see him back, even just for a movie. Levi is likewise game to bring the character one last time via a feature-length film and has been working on the project for years now. In light of the show’s 10th anniversary, the actor sat down with EWand talked about the possibility of Chuck the movie finally taking flight:

“I’d love to do it. As far as I know, I’m the only person who’s affiliated with the show that’s been trying to make it happen on some level. I’ve had meetings with various people. There’s just so many moving parts. The answer is I’d love to still make it happen, even if it’s 10 years down the line. Because of the world, it could still be plausible. It’s just difficult. Warner Bros. has the rights to it, I don’t have a script. And in order to get the rights, I need to probably get a script, but in order to get the script, I need to pay a writer, but if I’ve got to find the money then in order to get the money, I need to make sure I have the rights. It’s like a Catch-44. [Laughs] I went to the whole cast years ago and said, “If I ever get a movie together, would you do it?” And everyone was like, “We’re totally in.” A lot of people have asked if we could do another season and there’s no way we could do another season. But I think that Chuck as a premise totally works to go do movies here and there. It’s a goofy American Bond. We had our baddies of the week, we can have baddies of the movie. You add a little bit more money, a little bit more time, maybe go shoot in some actual international destinations, you make a fun 90-minute movie, and release it online. I think we can do that, but there’s a lot of moving parts and I’m the only one who’s trying to get all the moving parts together. So, we’ll see.”

In an era were reboots and revivals are very popular in Hollywood, Chuck getting the same treatment is not totally improbable. In fact, if the movie gains as much fan support as the original series did years ago, it might not even be that difficult to bring back the show for a limited run. What is interesting is that Levi seems to specifically want to continue the Chuck property as a movie and not as a television series. It’s certainly not unheard of, what with Sex and the City and Entourage having both made the jump to the big screen years after ending their original runs on TV, but it’s not exactly a common practice either.

Whether or not Levi succeeds in his mission to bring Chuckto the big screen, remains to be seen. The original series has maintained its popularity since it ended and has probably even gained more fans, thanks to its availability on Netflix. Narrative-wise, it probably wouldn’t be that difficult to find a way to continue the story of Chuck, given how ambiguous the original show’s finale was, either.